quintate

First attested in verbal use in 1812, in adjectival use in 1851, and in nominal use in 1889; from the Classical Latin quīntus (“fifth”); in the verbal sense after decimate, and in the botanic senses by mistaken analogy with ternate.

• (Received Pronunciation, UK) enPR: kwĭnʹtāt, IPA^(key): /ˈkwɪnteɪt/

quintate (present participle quintating)

1. (obsolete, rare) Seize or destroy one fifth (of something).
   • 1812, Emanuel Swedenborg [aut.] and J. Clowes [tr.], Arcana Cœlestia VII (2nd ed.), chapter xli, pages 210⁽¹⁾ and 270⁽²⁾

     ⁽¹⁾ Let Pharaoh…quintate^✸ the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance of provision.

     ✸ Quintate signifies to take a fifth of any thing, and is derived from the Latin quintus, signifying a fifth, as decimate is derived from decimus, signifying a tenth.

     ⁽²⁾ “And let him quintate the land” — that hereby is signified which were to be preserved and afterwards stored up, appears from the signification of quintating, as here involving the like with decimating.

• (reduce proportionately, by single aliquot part): tertiate (⅓), sextate (⅙), septimate (⅐), decimate (⅒), duodecimate (¹⁄₁₂), centesimate (¹⁄₁₀₀)

• quintation (rare)

quintate (not comparable)

1. (botany) An erroneous formation where quinate is meant.
   • 1851, “The Dispensatory of the United States of America” (9th ed.^?), quoted in the Journal of Materia Medica XIV (1875), page 49

     Potentilla Reptans, Cinquefoil, a…European herb, with leaves which are usually quintate, and have thus given origin to the ordinary name of the plant.

   • 1880, Lucius Elmer Sayre, Conspectus of Organic Materia Medica and Pharmacal Botany, page 127

     The radical leaves…are ternate or quintate, with lobed and dentate leaflets.

   • 1882, Vick’s Monthly Magazine V, page 167

     The large quintate leaves constitute a luxuriant, glossy green foliage.

   • 1952, Ray Joseph Davis, Flora of Idaho, page 515

     Leaves 1-2-pinnate or ternate- or quintate-pinnate, the ultimate divisions remote, linear, 1–5 cm long.

quintate (plural quintates)

1. (botany, rare) An erroneous formation where quinate is meant.
   • 1889, Report of Proceedings … at the … Annual Meeting …^? X–XVI, page 193

     As to radiates, these are ternates and quintates, two in number,
     From among which we “plucked the four-leaf clover.”

2. (mathematics, rare, of a quinary-decimal number system) The set of the series of integers that occur between a multiple of five and the next (exclusive of those multiples).
   • 1913, W.C. Eells, “Number Systems of the North American Indians” in The American Mathematical Monthly XX, page 294

     We have as variations for the numbers from 6 to 9, 6 = X + 1…, 7 = X + 2, etc.,…the numerals of the second quintate repeating without the use of the expressed base five.

• equitant